Breyer and the Last Throes

Edward Winter
The Hungarian master Gyula Breyer (1893-1921) is regularly quoted as saying/writing that after 1 e4 Whites game is in the last throes, and C.N. 9 asked if this was apocryphal.

Gyula Breyer

C.N. 654 quoted from a review of Modern Ideas in Chess Richard Rti in the BCM, September 1923, page 338, written by P.W. Sergeant:

by

On page 141 Breyer is quoted as saying that after 1 P-K4 Whites game is in its last throes. But this is scarcely hyper-modern, for H.E. Atkins made a similar joking remark to the present reviewer if his memory is not at fault, 25 years ago. We returned to the subject in C.N. 1549, citing D.J. Morgan on page 200 of the June 1954 BCM :

M.V. Anderson. We have looked further into the Breyer dictum. Rti, in his Modern Ideas in Chess (English translation, London, 1923), makes a long quotation from, he says, a booklet by Dr Tartakower: and above all (as Breyer preaches in one of his published treatises), After the first move 1 P-K4 Whites game is in the last throes ... We wrote to Dr Tartakower and asked for particulars of the published treatise. In a typically courteous reply he says: I am astonished that Rti quotes me in speaking of Breyer, for it is precisely from Rti himself that I learnt all about his friend Breyer ... I do not know whether Breyer did publish a book ... Breyers (or perhaps Rtis own) dictum was the initial position is a very difficult one to judge. Any conclusions from this we leave to you. As also pointed out in C.N. 1549, it is curious that when M.V. Anderson referred to this enquiry on page 8 of

CHESS

of 24 October 1959, he twice mistakenly wrote Bogolyubov instead of Tartakower, concluding: The truth may be traceable from another remark in Rtis book; on page 122, there is a diagram of a chess board with the pieces in position for the commencement of a game, entitled, A complicated position. Rti says there that Breyer in an article some years ago (In the original German editions of 1922 he has vor einigen Jahren in ungarischer Sprache ) i.e., some years prior to 1922 Breyer wrote an article in a Hungarian magazine to prove 1 P-Q4 better than 1 P-K4. But there were plenty of players as far back as Stauntons time that had the same view. It can be concluded that Rti probably invented a dramatic statement from a mythical treatise just to dub it absurd, and it now goes round the world as the solemn belief of a man who probably never heard of it. Breyer died in 1921 before the first edition of Rtis book.

In the 7 November 1959 CHESS (page 42) A. Eccles pointed out that Rti had referred to Tartakower and not Bogoljubow, and said that Rtis concluding quotation Credo quia absurdum does not mean which is absurd but I believe this because it is impossible.

Modern Ideas in Chess

by R. Rti (London, 1923)

Die neuen Ideen im Schachspiel

1922)

by R. Rti (Vienna,

Strangely, nobody seems to have turned to Tartakowers booklet, Am Baum der Schacherkenntnis (Berlin, 1921), to check what he wrote. Page 16 has the passage quoted by Rti (and quoted with a few small changes). The Latin phrase is there; A. Eccles was clearly misled by the English editions faulty use of quotation marks into thinking that it was Rti rather than Tartakower who had picked the expression.

Am Baum der Schacherkenntnis

(Berlin, 1921), page 16

by S. Tartakower

Below is an English translation of Tartakowers final paragraph: The apparently unmasked idols of the old school are overturned; the favourite openings appear to be refuted: the Four Knights Game, childish; the Ruy Lpez, ineffectual; the Queens Gambit, compromising; and in any case (thus preaches the Grand Cophta Breyer in a treatise published by him) White would be in the last throes already after the first move! Credo, quia absurdum! In his reference to Breyer, Tartakower used the word Abhandlung, treatise either in the sense of article or book. Our only other find was reported in C.N. 2497. Page 433 of the December 1911 La Stratgie quoted a remark by S. Barasz (i.e. Z. Barsz) from Magyar Sakkujsg : As far as I remember, it was Mieses who made the piquant remark that 1 e4 is a mistake which leads to the loss of the game. It is certainly surprising to see Mieses name mentioned. Moreover, can it be a coincidence that Barszs remark appeared in annotations to a game from a tournament (Budapest, 1911) in which both Barsz and Breyer were participants? which may mean

For further information on these matters see pages 118-119 and 144-151 of Gyula Breyer Sein Leben, Werk und Schaffen fr die Erneuerung des Schachs by Ivn Bottlik (Unterhaching, 1999).

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Copyright 2007 Edward Winter. All rights reserved.